Sen. Mark Warner reminds the U.S. Senate of the deleterious effects furloughs are having

In a floor speech delivered in the hallowed space of the U.S. Senate, U.S. Senator from Virginia Mark Warner reminded his colleagues about the “disproportionate” impact that the so-called furloughs are having on federal government employees.

For Sen. Warner, who represents a state with a large number of federal government employees, the furloughs and their impacts on his constituency could have a direct effect on his bid for re-election. Thus, Warner has a vested interest in bringing the furloughs to a definite end.

During his speech, Warner reiterated that “Across the federal workforce today, many employees now are required to take one day off without pay every week until the end of the fiscal year. If you think a net 20-percent reduction in salary has no impact, you would be mistaken. I hear from federal workers and their families every day – real people, facing real consequences.”

For the families of furloughed federal government employees, and the federal government employees themselves, the furloughs have come not only as economic shocks, but shocks to their morale as well. The potential consequences could be not just losses in spending power, losses of faith in the government they work for, but reduced productivity.

While some individuals, mainly on the conservative side of the political spectrum, have argued and still argue that public sector benefits are too high relative to their private sector counterparts, anyone who has worked in both sectors would probably agree that you need the extra incentive to work in a government office! I don’t make this statement with an explicit judgment attached; it is the nature of government bureaucracies to operate according to established procedures(s) and not necessarily individual initiative and creativity. Thus, for those in the workforce who wish and want to “think outside the box” (i.e., a lot of what we know as human beings) a public sector job may not be particularly alluring and therefore extra benefits may be the decisive factor in pursuing a job in the public sector.

But all these arguments and considerations aside, real people are facing real consequences, as Sen. Warner pointed out during his floor speech. As Americans, do we no longer care about the well-being of our neighbors and fellow-citizens? Have we become so caught up in our microcosms (i.e., our own lives) that we’ve forgotten what it means to be part of a greater whole?

Tell congress to do the right thing and put an end to these callous furloughs.